Mostly Wordless Wednesday: "Spring" (<-- those are great, big, honking air quotes there)

These were my crocuses as of Monday morning, the first morning of Spring, when I stepped out onto the porch to see Kiddo off to the school bus:

These were my crocuses as of *this* morning, the third morning of Spring, when I stepped out onto the porch to see Kiddo off to the school bus:

And these were my crocuses as of 4pm today, and I am really wishing that my computer had a function to adequately depict great, big, honking air quotes to put around the word Spring:

It is of small comfort when our local meteorologists cheerfully remind us that the official "snow season" (<-- more GBHAQ there) doesn't end for our area until June 1st.  Or that there was snow last year on Mother's Day.  Small, cold, white comfort indeed.

One way to cure the blahs

So, I've been having a bit of a blah day.  It started out with not wanting to get out of my toasty, snuggly bed while it was still dark outside, but I had to get up and get Kiddo up and at 'em and off to school, so up I got, while Hubby rolled over and went back to sleep for a few more minutes.  *grumble*  While walking through the still-dark house to get to the living room light, I stepped in something cold, wet and oozy - cat hairball.  *grumble grumble*  Kiddo was spectacularly grouchy and griped about every.  Single.  Thing.  From her breakfast to her clothes to her hair, she moaned and dragged, requiring me to have to prod and cajole and, okay, nag to get her rear in gear and out to the bus.  *grumble grumble grumble*  Then, due to my Man Hands With Sausage Fingers, I apparently had entered the wrong time on my iPod Touch (darn that little scrolly-wheel thingy!) when I got the email with the shift assignments and thus, showed up an hour late for my volunteer shift at class pictures, missing Kiddo's class's turn in the process.  *grumble grumble grumble grumble*  Top that all off with the weather, which is gray and rainy, and by midafternoon I was ready to just crawl back into bed and try for a do-over on today, or just sleep through until tomorrow, whichever occurred first.  Seeing as how neither of those options were practical or possible, I went another route.

I did this:

and then, when Kiddo got home from school

I had this ready to go:

(Side note: Great Value brand marshmallows, which are Walmart's generic brand, are the only marshmallows I can find that do not contain artificial food coloring.  Isn't that nuts?  Seriously, every other white marshmallows, from store generic to fancy-pants brand, contain blue food dye.)

Once we had all the elements in place

we got to work -

and then partook of the deliciousness..........

And that?  Cures the blahs just about as well as anything else I could think of (short of crawling back into bed and/or having Hugh Jackman and George Clooney show up on my doorstep to engage in a serenade duel while bearing flowers and chocolate) today.  Plus, I've got a pot roast in the crock pot, so no fussing at the stove for dinner.  I have to go to a PTSA meeting over at Kiddo's school tonight, but I won't think about heading out into the cold and wet again just yet.  I think I'll toast myself just one more marshmallow first...

Call me Fred. Or Barry.

This afternoon, I went out to tackle the green beast that is also known as our lawn in late summer.  (This would be the second time this week I've had to mow, for those of you keeping score at home.)  I geared up appropriately for the chore with my iPod and headphones and got to cutting.  I did the front and side yards to the strains of my Leonard Cohen playlist, but by the time I got around to the back, I needed something a bit more.... peppy.  Now, Kiddo has recently become enamored of a certain tune on Mommy's iPod, and it is a tune that is near and dear to Mommy's heart.  I first heard it when I was her age or a little bit younger, and I loved it from the very first bongo thump.  It's one that she has been requesting repeatedly for the past few weeks, so it instantly sprang to mind as I scrolled through my playlists.  Perfect choice!

The song of which I speak, of course, is that 70s classic Copacabana by none other than Barry Manilow.  I adored the song as a kid and still do now.  As a child, I was instantly smitten by the drama of the song (not to mention those bongos) and choreographed a dance routine to go with it.  Now, I'm teaching Kiddo the dance moves (and she is embellishing them with lots of added jazz hands.  Kiddo is a big believer in jazz hands) and she and I belt it out when we're driving around town, sitting at the breakfast table, hanging out on the lanai... it's an all-occasion bit of groovy joy.

Anyhow, there I was in the back yard.  Hubby had taken Kiddo up to the playground to burn off some energy, so I had the yard to myself (well, except for the squirrels and bunnies and jays and cardinals, oh and the bees - lots of bees).  I dialed up the Copa and pulled the starter cord on the mower.  (Incidentally, I always feel so.......... macho when I'm pulling the starter cord on the mower.  Especially when it takes a couple of tries before the engine actually catches.  Is that just me?)  I began merrily cutting my way up and down the back .40 and when the disco violins soared above the bongos, I started singing too.  Singing *and* dancing, actually.  Air bongos are pretty much mandated with the Copa, and that dance routine I've been doing for over 30 years now lives in my very marrow (plus Kiddo's jazz hands - she really is right about how jazz hands make anything better).  I think by now it is physically impossible for me to remain silent and still when the Copa is playing.  I've sung and shimmied to it in any form, including Muzak.  (I'm killer in an elevator - the acoustics are fantabulous, you know.) 

So, there I was, just like Fred and his hat rack

See the whole routine right here!

except instead of a jaunty neckerchief with matching red belt and socks, I was wearing a paint-spattered, 10 year old t-shirt over a boob-squashing sports bra and grass-stained sneakers, and instead of a hat rack, I had an old and decrepit lawn mower.  And jazz hands - Fred may've been a great dancer, but he really underutilized the jazz hands.  But other than those tiny details, I was exactly like Fred Astaire.

Naturally, it wasn't until after the last refrain "Copa.....Copacabana" had faded into silence and I was left with naught but the sound of my mower that I happened to catch sight of one of our neighbors.  Specifically, the lovely, older lady whose property backs up to ours, and who had apparently decided to take advantage of the cooler temperatures and breeze today to do a bit of gardening in her back flower beds.  The ones that are right at the property line, which means she had a front row seat for Heather-Fred-Barry and my dance partner, the lawn mower.  Totally busted.  Yeek.  I did what any self-respecting Fanilow would do in such a situation.  I waited for the next song to cue up and then treated her to a little Bandstand Boogie.  With plenty of jazz hands, of course.

Not *exactly* a bee in my bonnet

So last night I had a Girls' Night Out with my BFF.  We started the evening by swinging by Sugar Mountain Bakery Shoppe, where we had some delicious cupcakes as a pre-show snack.  The show was Estrofest, which stars one of my dear friends (who also is the mom of Kiddo's BFF - we met at a Gymboree class when the girls were still in diapers) and which I'd somehow not ever seen before.  The night concluded with a late dinner at The Winfield Grill with some of the cast and other assorted entourage members and then a drive home later than I've been out in aeons with a glimpse of a shooting star thanks to the Perseid Meteor Shower.  All in all, a perfectly wonderful night.  Good friends, good food and a lot of good laughs (seriously, if you're local enough to my corner of upstate NY, go to the Blackfriars Theatre and see Estrofest while you still can this summer, and then go see them again this winter.  Hilarious, hilarious, hilarious!  Norma Holland especially is a comedic wonder).

I could rave on and on about any or all of the above - the deliciousness that is an SMBS cupcake, the hilarity that is Estrofest, but none of that is the point of this post.  What I actually want to share with you is this:

During the show's intermission, my BFF, my Estrofest friend's husband (who is also my friend) and I stepped outside as the lobby was quite crowded and warm.  As we stood on the sidewalk chatting, I felt something land on my chest.  Now, I'd gussied myself up a bit for my big GNO, putting on a "fancy" top I haven't worn in years (bought it a few years ago because it caught my eye in a shop; got it home and wore it once to church but then decided it made me look pregnant and thus, developed a complex about it and put it away for like three years before deciding that I didn't care if it makes me look pregnant and pulled it out and wore it last night) with some linen pants and higher-heeled sandals and even slapped on some eyeliner and tinted lip gloss.  Now, wearing the fancy top meant putting on appropriate undergarments, in this case a Very Serious Bra.  We're talking plunging and décolletage-enhancing cups, padding, major underwire.  In this VSB, my bosoms are spectacular, if I do say so myself.  (Let me also point out that I encase them in the VSB only once in a blue moon, because the very seriousness of it lends itself to a fair amount of discomfort in short order.  This is no Playtex 18 hour comfy support type undergarment, to be sure.)

So, there the three of us stood chatting, out in the summer evening, when something landed on my chest, just north of the scoop-neck,  low-cut (at least for me) neckline of my fancy top, dangerously close to my spectacular bosoms.  I glanced down and swept a hand as discreetly as possible across my chest because, after all, one doesn't want to be seen out on a city sidewalk groping at one's own boob, spectacular as it may be.  I didn't catch sight of whatever it was that had landed on me, but as we were standing under some trees, I figured it was a bit of twig or leaf or berry and left it at that.  A few moments later, intermission ended and we filed back into the theater for the second half of the show.  The lights dimmed, the cast returned, hilarity ensued and................ I felt something move on my chest.  Well, not on my chest so much as inside my Very Serious Bra.

Eep!

I shifted a bit in my seat, thinking that the bit of twig or leaf or whatever had landed on me must've plunged into my plunging brassiere instead of being dislodged when I'd swept my hand across the shirt, and then whatever it was inside my bra  moved.  As in crawled.  Inside my bra.  Across my left boob.

Oh.  My.

Here I was, in the middle of a row in a not terribly big theater, where they were picking volunteers from the audience for different things, with something crawling in my bra.  I didn't want to get up, excuse-me-pardon-me-oh-sorry-was-that-your-foot-excuse-me my way down the row and out to the lobby and restroom because given the dimensions of the theater and my proximity to the stage (and the exit to the lobby's proximity to the stage), that seemed to be a dangerous and disruptive thing to do (not to mention that I'd be faced with the eternal dilemma - does one exit the row with one's derrière facing the other seated patrons at close range or facing out, which in this case would've meant one's derrière facing the rest of the theater and actors).  I shifted about a bit and hoped that whatever it was would either crawl the heck out of my underthings or become fatally smothered between the padding and my skin.  The movement, after a few, terrible seconds, stopped.  Whew.  And then, a few moments later, it began again.  Crawling lower.  The lights went down, briefly, at the end of the sketch.  I took the opportunity to try to genteelly and discreetly swipe a hand into the edge of my top.  Nope, whatever it was that was crawling in there was far to low for any polite public squashing or removal.  Mind you, I'm not a Squasher of Living Things when they're crawling on the floor or wall or ceiling, much less when they're on my actual person.  But desperate times and all that - the crawling paused and continued, paused and continued.  Throughout the entire second act, I'd feel whatever it was crawling ever so slowly further south.  Now, I was fairly certain that no matter what the critter, it wasn't going to get any lower than the Formidable Underwire that ran along the southern border of the VSB.  However, I was also increasingly nervous that the critter might be of the burrowing or biting sort.  So, while I was laughing my head off through the second act, a small part of my brain was conjuring up images of deer ticks or tiny, poisonous spiders milliseconds away from deciding the underside of my left bosom was the perfect place to grab a meal or dig in some fangs.  I kept shifting and crossing my arms across my chest, trying to both be unobtrusive and get whatever it was that was crawling around my unmentionables to either evacuate or perish, with no such luck.

The second the show ended (conveniently enough with a standing ovation, so everyone was up out of their seats), I mumbled something about needing the rest room to my companions and took off for the lobby.  I got into the ladies' room, locked the door and whipped my shirt up to take a look.

It was just a bug.  A little, black, beetle-y bug.  Innocuous and non-lethal, it was nestled there where it had become caught by the Underwire Border.  I rescued it with a kleenex and then promptly smooshed it out of existence and inspected my chest for signs of trauma in the mirror.  Finding none, I readjusted my spectacular bosoms in the VSB, made sure my fancy top was back in its proper place and then fake-flushed the toilet and washed my hands, then rejoined my friends in the lobby.  (Side note: why did I feel compelled to pretend I'd been peeing when I hadn't?  Because I did feel compelled.  So strange.)  When my BFF and I left the theater and were driving to the restaurant, I told her about the Bosoms-Bug Encounter and she was equal parts amused and horrified.  So, of course I had to share it with you, my dear readers and whatever weirdos are googling the words "boobs" and "bra" or even stranger, "bosoms" ...

In conclusion, apparently you can dress me up, but you can't take me anywhere.  At least I looked spectacular for the occasion, though. 

Not quite life handing one lemons and making lemonade, but...

So, I had this bunch of bananas going steadily overripe in my fruit bowl on the kitchen counter.  Actually, it was parts of two separate bunches; the original bunch I'd bought which started getting riper than the ripeness level Kiddo will willingly consume (she eats a banana each morning as part of her breakfast), and a second bunch I'd bought when the first bunch started getting too ripe so there'd be bananas for Kiddo to consume, with the assumption that Hubby, who isn't nearly as persnickety about what constitutes a too-ripe banana, would eat the remainder of the first bunch (he takes a banana in his lunch on days that he brings lunch to work).  What wound up happening was that Hubby didn't eat enough of the first bunch and the second bunch ripened alarmingly quickly, being, as they were, in such close proximity to the first bunch, and before I knew it, I had half a dozen bananas that were all way too ripe for anyone in the house to want to eat.  And by "anyone" I mean "Hubby or Kiddo" because I do not eat bananas.  Not in their original form, anyhow.  I have a thing about bananas dating back to when I was a child, and try as I may as an adult, I cannot overcome it and eat them plain and unadulterated.

I will, however, gladly eat them in an adulterated form, like, say, as banana bread.  Of course, to eat them as banana bread requires making the banana bread, which is what I decided I'd do.  I decided this right around when the insane heat wave started, though, as the bananas all had the unfortunate timing to edge perilously close to rotten just when the thermometer started racing up (and up, and up.  Didn't the heat wave realize where it was?  This is upstate New York, for Pete's sake!  We prefer to buy plane tickets and make hotel reservations to experience those kind of temperatures.  When we choose to, on purpose, paying good money to do so.  We don't like to just be subjected all willy-nilly to upper 90s in our own hometown, sheesh!!)  Who in their right mind wants to turn on an oven and bake things for an hour when it is freakishly hot outside?  No one in their right mind, that's who, and not me, either.  So, the bananas sat, going browner and browner, first in the fruit bowl and then in the fridge, until today when the heat finally dropped back down below 80 and turning the oven on didn't seem quite so laughable a thought.

I rescued my beloved, cobalt blue Kitchenaid stand mixer from its sad, temporary home in the bottom of my pantry, vowing to it once again that the moment our kitchen renovation is complete (neglecting to mention that the renovation won't even begin for another few years unless we win the lottery sooner than that), I will move it to a permanent place of honor, out on the countertop, so it will no longer have to languish behind the bag of dry cat food, nor will it have to practically give me a hernia every time I haul it out and up into the daylight to use.  I dug out my go-to recipe for banana bread, took a deep breath, fired up the oven and got to mixin'.

Here's the thing about banana bread: it smells better than any other thing in the world when it is baking.  Seriously.  The smell wafts all throughout the house, permeating every nook and cranny with that delicious odor.  Longer lasting than chocolate chip cookies, more powerful than brownies, less "have to be in the mood for it or it is icky" than bacon, there's just something about banana bread that makes it the best thing you can possibly bake in terms of making your entire house smell edible.  Within 15 minutes of me popping the pans into the oven, Kiddo surfaced from the lanai, nose sniffing away.  Hubby, downstairs in the office, noticed the wondrous smell as well.  Both of them began asking me "When will it be ready?  Is it ready yet?"  By the time I pulled the loaves out, we were all salivating heavily.

I wish that there was a Scratch-n-Sniff plug-in for the internet, because that would make this:

so much better.  Sadly, you'll either have to take my word for it, or hop in your car (or on a plane, depending on where you're reading this right now) and stop over for a slice of banana bread heaven.  We've only got a loaf and a half left now, so you'd better stop by soon.  Or, for a last option, buy too many bananas, let them get too ripe, and bake up a batch yourself:

Best Banana Bread in the World Recipe:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Cream together 2 sticks butter and 2.5 cups sugar.  Add 6 overripe bananas, blend well.  Add 4 well-beaten eggs, blend well again.  In a separate bowl while the previous mixture is blending (I set my Kitchenaid around a 4 for this - medium/medium-low), sift together 3 cups of flour, 1 teaspoon of salt, and 3 teaspoons of baking soda.  Add dry ingredients and (once again) blend well.  Pour into two greased loaf pans (you know, the traditional size "loaf" pans, though I have several and no two are the exact, same size).  Bake for about an hour - until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out cleanly.  Depending on the oven I've been using, this can take anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and 20 minutes, so I generally start checking the loaves for doneness around the 45 minute mark, then every 5 minutes thereafter.  Enjoy!!

Random Thoughts Tuesday (because it is still, barely, Tuesday)

Once Lost had finished blowing my mind and breaking my heart this evening, I'd intended to come in here to the office, shut off my computer, grab my book and head up to bed.  (I'm reading the latest Jodi Picoult, by the way, anyone else read it?  I'm about 3/4 of the way through right now, so please, no spoilers.  I'm still wondering Did He or Didn't He?  Or Did His Brother?...)

Well, one thing led to another - or more precisely, one click led to another, and here I still sit, almost two hours later.  Time Management and Decent Bedtime FAIL.  So, instead, I'm going to throw out a Random Thoughts Tuesday (now with rambly intro, woot!) like my bloggy friend Cristin does so well.  (I know it isn't Cristin's original idea, but she's the one I read regularly who does this the most, so I'm going to leave it with her.)

Here goes!
 
***
I've developed a new landscaping style in the past few weeks.  I call it the "Yard Mullet" and it is achieved by mowing the front and sides of one's yard, but leaving the back long.  I find it's easiest to create the Yard Mullet by attempting to mow when under impossible time constraints and if there's Weather coming.  You know, with a capital W, like last week's spring snow, or this morning's thunder, lightning and hail storm that blew in out of seemingly nowhere.  Yep, from the street, it's all business - neatly trimmed, nary a dandelion bobbing, but in back?  Jungle party!

(For the record, I *do* go back out and get the yard de-mulleted eventually.  It's not like my property is the equivalent of a 90's Billy Ray Cyrus or anything.)

Feel free to try it.  It's just retro enough to be cool, and I really think it will catch on.  I mean, have you seen some of what's considered fashionable these days?  I mean, for Pete's sake, jeggings?!?!

***

Speaking of cutting, Kiddo needed a trim, and when I took her in to the salon yesterday afternoon, she asked if she could have it cut even shorter than it had been when we had it bobbed back in March.  I said yes, and lo and behold, another two-two and a half inches hit the floor.  It still looks pretty dang cute, if I do say so myself, but it is reverting to its wavier self now that it is shorter, which is bugging Kiddo (who didn't listen to her mama, even though Mama always is right, heh).  She's going to lose her mind when we go to Florida this summer and her shorter 'do meets the southern, summer humidity!

But in the meantime, it looks like this:

If she continues to want it shorter at every consecutive haircut appointment, I figure she'll be channeling Demi's G.I. Jane look by the time she's eight.

***

Back to the topic of yards and specifically dandelions - do you want to know why I'm now convinced dandelions are EVIL?  Because last week, I pulled a handful out of a planting bed, all of them not-yet-silver-and-open, and tossed them in the yard debris pile at the curb.  Two days later when I was out getting the mail, I glanced over at the debris pile and discovered this:

Yes.  They'd continued maturing and had opened even after being picked.  Every single, last one of them.  WTH?!?!  That is just so not right!!

It would also help my yard out considerably if my beloved daughter didn't find blowing dandelions irresistible.  Grrrr.  I guess this is karmic payback for all the dandelions I blew in my youth, but still.  Oy.

***

I'm on the school carnival committee, and part of my job is to solicit businesses for donations for our raffle.  I haaaaaaaate soliciting.  Even for a good cause (which it is) and even for a nonprofit (ditto).  I've told myself I don't know how many times in the past week I'm going to get out there and get it over with, but each time something (something totally legitimate, like Kiddo coming down with strep and me coming down with a nasty but fairly brief stomach bug) has prevented me from going.  Now I've sworn to myself that I'm going to go tomorrow and do it.  Maybe typing the words and hitting the Publish Post button will help reinforce my resolve.  Why can't the donation fairy just turn up at my doorstep with some artfully packaged gift baskets and a fat stack of gift cards?  Sigh...

***

This afternoon was our monthly Daisy Scout Troop meeting.  This fact should not ever be a surprise to me, seeing as how I'm the troop leader.  Yet once again, I found myself looking down at Kiddo's Daisy tunic and at a baggie of patches that needed to be affixed, just so, to said tunic, just an hour before I had to leave to go to the meeting.  I don't know if this counts as Mom Fail, Daisy Troop Leader Fail, or both...

So, I was determined (as I always am in that final 60 minutes before I have to leave when I discover anew I haven't attached last month's acquisitions to the dang tunic yet) that I would get them on before I had to go.  I dragged out the ironing board and plugged in the iron.  Checked the contents of the baggie - only two patches, not too hard.  I began doing the larger one that needed affixing to the back of the tunic first.  I ironed and I ironed and I ironed, and the damn thing just *wasn't* sticking.  It took me over three minutes before it finally dawned on me - this was a sew-on patch, not an iron-on patch.  All the ironing in the world wasn't going to stick that bad boy on.  If only I hadn't burned my hands and fingers fourteen times while attempting the impossible.  Sheesh.  I abandoned it in favor of the more important Daisy petal that had to be stuck onto the front.  This one I *knew* is an iron-on, as I've already put eight of its brethren on the front in a rather haphazard, circular formation per Daisy Uniform Guidelines.  I lined it up and began ironing away.  It isn't adhering, either.  ?!?!?  Yes, I kept attempting to iron it on for another good minute before pausing, engaging the rusty wheels in my skull that pass for a brain, and flipping the petal over.  It still had the backing paper on.  Whoops.

I burned my fingertips mightily removing the now-nuclear-hot backing paper from the tiny petal, but I got that dang thing on before I left.  Of course we came home from the meeting with two more petals that need to be sewn on, so I purposely left the iron and ironing board set up and set Kiddo's tunic on it when we got home, because this time?  I'm not waiting until the afternoon of the meeting.  I might as well get them on before the scabs heal from the burns I incurred today!

***

Has anyone out there actually bought and tried those sneakers that are supposed to help your posture and tighten muscles and help you get in shape?  I will admit to being intrigued whenever I see an ad in Entertainment Weekly or a commercial on TV.  I'm more than halfway tempted to get a pair, but I'd love to know if they live up even vaguely to the hype.  (Sorry, Joe Montana, you don't cut it for me, endorsement-wise.  I'd like to hear from a real person, preferably a woman, whose opinion I could trust more readily.)

Whoops, now it's Wednesday.  I really need to get to bed.  I'm meeting (in my carnival committee persona) with the principal tomorrow, and I don't want to be either racoon-eyed and yawning or so jacked up on caffeine I can't sit still, and I fear at this point, it's going to be one of those options or the other...................... 

Spring FAIL

This?

Is SNOW.

Coming down fast and furious outside right now.

On April 27th.

What the hey, Mother Nature?!?!

Sometimes Mother Nature can be a real B----

So we have this tree in our front yard that I've nicknamed the Leafy Bastard. It's a silver maple and it is huge.





The plus side of having a huge silver maple in the front yard is that we have some lovely shade in the summer months, something we never had at our old, virtually shadeless house. The downsides of having a huge silver maple in the front yard include the helicopter seeds that come down in massive quantities for weeks and weeks in the spring, followed by a summer's worth of bird crap all over the driveway (and anything thereupon) and what has happened over the past month. The shedding of the leaves.


Now, having a virtually shadeless yard up until this point in our homeowning lives, we never had to deal with leaf collection and removal. The two ornamental pear trees and one tiny maple at our old house only shed a minimal amount of leaves that were easily mulched in with the lawnmower. Not so the Leafy Bastard.


A few weeks ago, I attempted to rake the seventy-six squillion leaves that LB had dropped all over the front yard.





My next door neighbor kindly lent me her gas-powered leaf blower, and I had a fair amount of fun blowing the leaves towards the front of the yard before raking them to the curb. The residual effect of not being able to feel my arms from the elbow down after leafblowing with such enthusiasm for over an hour was a small price to pay. "Hey, leaf removal isn't so bad!" I thought to myself. Kiddo definitely thinks it is a grand, old time.







So, happy with the leaf containment I had achieved, I congratulated myself heartily on a job well done. Then I woke up and looked out the window the next day. Leafy Bastard had decided to mock my earnest efforts by dumping another seventy-six squillion leaves on the front yard. I'd have thought I dreamed the entire leaf-removing experience except that my ginormous pile was still there at the curb and the blisters were still all over my hands. (Yes, I wore gloves. I shudder to think what my hands would've looked like if I hadn't.)


It wound up taking four full leaf blowing/raking events over a three week period to get the majority of the leaves to the curb. Leafy Bastard. If you think I am being unduly harsh to ole LB, let me tell you this. It turns out that leaves are a serious allergen for my poor,beleaguered eyeballs. All that leaf work culminated in my eyelids swelling to the size of golf balls and my eyes feeling as though they were being stabbed by red hot pokers, along with my vision degrading to the point that I felt like I was seeing the world through heavily Vaselined lenses. I would've taken a picture to show you, but my eyes were getting really sensitive to the light too and I didn't want to kill them with the flash.


After a few days of worsening eye problems, I took myself over to the eye doctor to get 'em checked out. Sure enough, the icky eye disease I dealt with two years ago, GPC, had reoccured, and I also have some SPK going on, and the combination of the two has made a hot mess of corneal badness. (Google the abbreviations if you must, but do so at your own risk because they're both really icky.) For the record, things you don't want to hear while at the eye doctor include "Wow, it looks like someone took sandpaper to your corneas!" and a general sucking in of breath in horror as he gazes in the other side of the machine you're holding your eyes up to for examination. Now I'm back on eye steroid and antibiotic drops and off of my contacts while my corneas heal.





At least this gets me off of leaf-removal duty for the rest of the year. Did I mention we have another huge, leafy silver maple in our back yard?

Random ramblings from my muddled mind...

It's snowing. Has been all day. Woke up to a world of white. Hubby and I tried to convince Kiddo when she first got up that we'd gone back in time and that this Sunday is going to be Christmas, not Easter, but she wasn't buying it. I am seriously, seriously sick of the snow.


Tomorrow is Kiddo's CSE meeting at school. A draft of her IEP for next year came home in her backpack today for our review before the meeting. I'd been worried that they were going to pull her one-on-one aide (remember? the aide that they didn't get in place properly until DECEMBER of this year?) but from what I can tell from the draft, that piece is still in there, which is good. Kiddo clearly is much more successful when she has the aide to consistently help with her sensory diet each day. Maybe tomorrow won't require my Big, Bad Mama cape after all, but I'm going to bring it just in case...


A person in my extended family is in the hospital right now. He went to the ER in the wee, small hours of the morning and will likely be in the hospital for at least three or four days. Depending on how he responds to the drugs, he may or may not require surgery. Surgery would not (obviously) be good, as there would be some long-lasting side effects during the recovery period. Please keep J in your prayers, those of you blog readers who are the praying sort. And while you're praying, another one of my friends has been having what very well could be the worst month EVER, and could use some prayers and comment love. Her blog is here.


In house-related news, we've found out that the town rec center for the 'burb to which we're moving has a summer camp program that is *much* more reasonably priced than any of the alternatives we've looked into and is located in the school she'll be attending in the fall. I spoke with the department supervisor and found out that it will not be a problem for Kiddo to have her OT during camp, either, which is good as that means one less thing to juggle. That is assuming, of course, that Kiddo will be receiving OT over the summer (we think she definitely SHOULD but who knows what the school district will say)...


An old friend of mine mentioned to me today that she is thinking of starting a blog. Y'all, if she does, you will TOTALLY need to read her. I'm not just saying that because she's my friend and would be a new blogger, but because seriously? She is one of the most interesting people I've ever known in my entire life. When we worked in the same office, she would tell me stories about things she'd done over the years and I'm telling you, each one was more fascinating than the last. She is an amazingly awesome person besides, so stay tuned because if she does start blogging, I will be plugging her blog like mad!


I don't know if it is because of the snow or what (I'd hate to blame it on my old friend PMS but let's just say I've eaten more Cheez Doodles in the past few days than anyone ought to eat...), but I've been in quite a mood all day. First I watched the 3 hour ER finale that had been hogging valuable DVR space since last Thursday, and I bawled my eyes out. Repeatedly. Then, (after brushing the Cheez Doodle crumbs off of my fleece blanket, which is decidedly not a Snuggie, alas), I was blogsurfing and wound up weeping while reading various blog posts. Also, I haven't changed out of my jammies all day. (I did take a shower, but then I put jammies right back on again.) All I want to do at this point is curl back up on the couch under my fleece non-Slanket (which Hubby read somewhere - Consumer Reports, maybe? - is far superior to the Snuggie) with perhaps a big bowl of popcorn or ice cream (or both!) and watch American Idol tonight. Although, I'm guessing that I'll be a wee bit depressed when all the contestants sing songs from the year they were born and more than likely, I'll remember each and every song from when I was in college or even after college. Yep, I'm definitely feeling a wee bit like Crotchety McGrump today for sure!


Last but not least, let me get some opinions from you, dear readers (and random Google Searchers who wind up here for reasons I'd rather not talk or think about.....). See, Kiddo once again wants to invite her entire class to her birthday party. With the upcoming move, we have been researching alternative locations to our house for a party. You know, places like Chuck E. Cheese or the zoo or one of the local bouncy houses. Well, the zoo has a "Radical Rainforest" party that sounds awesome, and would be within our budget (barely, but still within), and Kiddo would LOVE to have her birthday party at the zoo.

Here's the catch: The zoo has a maximum number of attendees and that number is 15. There are 17 kids in Kiddo's class, plus her 2 best friends from outside her class, so we're looking at a total of 19 kids. I called the zoo and found out that the 15 is a firm number, due to maximum occupancy requirements for the room they use for parties.

So, what do we do? Invite all 19 kids and hold our breath and hope that at least 4 don't show up? Make Kiddo *not* invite her whole class? (Which I'm really not a fan of on the one hand, having been the kid that didn't get invited to things back in the day myself, though the budget certainly would appreciate a smaller crowd...) The other thing is that the party could potentially be Memorial Day weekend (which is the weekend right before her birthday) and I don't know if that is a good plan or a bad plan. We don't want to do it the weekend after her birthday, since that is theoretically the weekend we'll be moving, but then again, we might be moving the weekend before if the closings come together quickly enough. The other alternative is doing it either two weeks before or two weeks after, though two weeks before would mean I'd definitely be skipping my 20th high school reunion. (I'm undecided on that one, as I haven't exactly lost a bunch of weight and gotten into crazy good shape as I'd intended, and also I don't know how many of the people I'd actually want to see at a reunion will even be there...)

What do you think? Invite the whole class and hope that at least 4 kids don't attend? Just keep looking for a different venue that would be able to accommodate up to 19 kids (to which our wallet says OUCH)? We can't do an "all girls" party because one of Kiddo's two best friends is a boy, and he wouldn't want to be the only boy there, and we can't just not invite him as his sister is Kiddo's other best friend. Hmmmmm. If anyone has a brilliant idea on this one, please let me hear it! Thanks!

I will leave you with a clip of a song that has been stuck in my head for days... The end result of being stuck home with Kiddo and her CD collection when she was sick!

Phriday Photo Phun - Happy first day of SPRING!?!

The flowers that bloom in the spring, tra la!
Breathe promise of merry sunshine —
As we merrily dance and we sing, tra la!
We welcome the hope that they bring, tra la,
Of a summer of roses and wine,
Of a summer of roses and wine.....





And that's what we mean when we say that a thing
Is welcome as flowers that bloom in the spring.
Tra la la la la,
Tra la la la la,
The flowers that bloom in the spring!





Happy First Day of Spring! Don't you love the shots above, of all my gorgeous bulbs and flowers, thriving in the gentle, sunshiny spring air? And look at my beautiful back yard this morning, on this, the day after the last day of winter.........





For comparison's sake, here is a shot I took of the back yard exactly one week ago:





*sigh*


Spring is sprung, the grass is riz, I wonder where the birdies iz?




I'm pretty sure Mr. Robin was thinking "WTH?!?!?!?!" as he promptly flew away. (Headed, no doubt, for the more tropical environs of the mid-Atlantic or southeastern states...) See ya in a couple more months, Rob!


I shouldn't be surprised, though, that spring has brought us more cold and snow, even after warming up well into the 40s and 50s for the past several days and making us hopeful for an end to the freezing and the bundling and the huddling under fleece blankets (though, alas, not a Snuggie) with the windows shut tightly against the chill, I mean, this is upstate New York, after all. Just two years ago, this was Kiddo hunting for Easter Eggs one fine, April Sunday morning:





And yet, waaaaaaaaah!!!! I'm ready for spring for real, man! For windows open and fresh air and flowers blooming and trees and bushes and lawns greening up and short-sleeved shirts with spring jackets and sneakers instead of sweaters under winter coats and boots...........................

in Just-

spring when the world is mud-

luscious the little

lame balloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come

running from marbles and

piracies and it's

spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer

old balloonman whistles

far and wee

and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's

spring

and

the

goat-footed

balloonMan whistles

far

and

wee

PS - want to play along with the Phriday Photo Phun?
Pop over to Candid Carrie's for the Phiesta!

For my dear friend Givinya...

My dear bloggy friend Givinya De Elba and I were chatting online a little while ago, she from tomorrow and summer as it is Down Under right now, and me from this evening and the dead of winter as it is here in upstate New York. In her corner of the world, they are having an insane heat wave, whilst in my corner of the world, it is cold-n-snowy as usual. With the assistance of a handy C-to-F converter, we ooohed and aaaahed and exclaimed about the extreme differences in our weather. She shared with me a set of adorable pictures of a wild koala who was photographed attempting to cool off on some family's porch in a tub of water (thereby reinforcing, as I told her, my American impressions and stereotypes of what Australia must surely be like* - koalas dangling from every tree branch, kangaroos munching on the veggie garden and packs of dingoes stealing babies at every opportunity. Oh, and let's not forget the crocs and sharks and how certainly all Australians must dress like this:



or



Unless of course, they look more like this....



or



which would be absolutely acceptable.) Anyhow, I told Givinya that I would have to take some pictures of our current weather for her, so after I tore myself away from the computer long enough to fix dinner for the family and all that jazz, I grabbed my camera and snapped a few shots. Sadly, there is nary a cute koala in any of them, actually there was nothing living to be seen on my street, excepting for a gentleman snowblowing his driveway up the block...

Anyhow, here now, for Givinya and anyone else who might care to view and imagine the frozen wasteland that is my property and neighborhood, is what it looked like outside the toasty walls of Chez Smith at approximately quarter past six this evening:



Above: The view out our front door. Note out by the street, how it is so much easier to collect our mail in the winter, as the snowbanks are high enough that should any mail drop from your mittened grasp as you leeeeean out your car window to collect it, the mail falls mere inches, so you don't even have to open your car door and reach all the way down to the street!



Above: The view out the window above my kitchen sink. Ahh, the joy of sitting on the deck, sipping a nice, cool drink.....only about six more months until such a thing will be a reality!



Above: The view out our back door. The rest of the deck, the back yard, and the pond behind our property. What's that? You can't quite make it out? Not even the birdbath by the back gate? All obliterated by a pile of white stuff in the pitch blackness that heralds 6pm here in the winter? *sigh* Exactly.

Yeah, brrrrrrrrr.

*Oh, and by the way, just to be clear, I'm totally kidding about Australia. I'm positively chartreuse with envy that Givinya and all the other citizens actually get to live there, and fervently hope and dream that someday, Down Under will be a destination the Smith family visits. And as far as Aussie couture is concerned, I also ought to mention that Kiddo is wholly obsessed with Bindi Irwin - aka "Bindi the Jungle Girl" -



and frequently requests that I style her hair just like Bindi's, please Mommy!, which I do by braiding it when it is wet, letting it dry, and then combing out. I refuse to ever buy a crimping iron, unless I'm suddenly guest starring on Lost and get flashed back to the 1980s when such purchases were acceptable.

And honestly, even if the majority of Australia was like this.........



That'd be a total hoot, so completely fine by me! I know, I know, only certain bits of the Outback are that exciting, I know... Still, Givinya does assure me that there are parts of her amazing country that do have the dangling koalas and hopping all over the place roos, so that's definitely cool enough by me!

(And I'm totally sure that Givinya is just dying to come 'round the globe to upstate NY now that she's seen what our lovely weather this time of year is like, right? Right?)

The "What Barbara Walters Would Ask if She Were HOT" meme

My dear blogosphere friend Eudea-Mamia just did this meme, and then graciously gave me the following questions so I could play, too. I'm fairly certain that credit for the title goes to EM, by the way....

My questions are:

1. Name one moment in your life when you were very proud of yourself (non Kiddo related!).

Um, I could go a bit cheesy here and say this moment:



but actually, I was more proud of passing the test and the audition/interview to get into the contestant pool than actually being called for the show, which was much more luck/chance than me actually *doing* something. Out of the 65 people that took the contestant exam that same day I did, only 6 of us passed it. So, that was a "woo, me!" moment.

On a less trivial level, I was also extremely proud of myself the day that I was promoted to the director of my department at the agency I worked for prior to the Ultimate Promotion to being a mom. I was only 27, the youngest person ever promoted to "senior management" and had been completely convinced I would never be picked to fill my predecessor's gigantic shoes. Some of the folks that I was up against for the job had PhDs and decades more experience than I, so I was a bit stunned to hear that I'd gotten the job. I'm further proud to say that during my tenure, my team exceeded all our contract requirements and benchmarks, started two new programs (one was a school-to-work program for high school students with disabilities, the other a program to help individuals with epilepsy who were unemployed or underemployed find and keep suitable employment) and had our department chosen to be one of five sites nationwide included in a federal grant. We were a great team and we helped a lot of people with very little resources and a lot of obstacles. I was definitely proud of that.

2. Which superpower would you choose a) being invisible? b) reading people's minds? c) stopping time?

Well, hmmm. Invisibility would be cool sometimes - I sure would work out a lot more if no one could see me huffing and puffing and sweating away, for example, or those times when I'm out in public with a melting-down kid, it sure would be great to be invisible then... Reading people's minds would also be cool, but could be very dangerous, as well. I mean, do I really want to know what people are thinking about me, really? *shudder* Pretending people are thinking well of me is probably the safer route for my ego, so no, not reading minds after all. (Though I suppose it would come in very handy with Kiddo, who at the age of 5 and a half has already perfected the monosyllabic grunt answer to questions like "How was your day at school?") Stopping time, hmmm, like Hiro on Heroes (which is on again starting tonight, woo-hoo!)? That could be good - I could keep Kiddo from bonking her noggin or skinning her knees, get the cat moved from the carpet to the linoleum *before* she gacked up that ginormous, juicy hairball, assist Hubby's golf game with an astounding amount of birdies - eagles, even! - prevent folks from sliding off the roads in all this snow and ice we just. Keep. Getting..... Yep, I think I'm going to go with stopping time.

3. What would your superhero name be?

This was a tough one. I was pondering aloud via my Facebook status and one of my old high school friends helpfully sent me a link to a site that generates your Superhero or Villian name. You have to plug in different variables (up to three) and then it will give you your name suggestions.

I scrolled through the list of variables, and decided that these were the best three for describing myself:



I mean, I'm whiter than the driven snow (skintone-wise), especially this time of year. (Hubby and I often joke that folks can always tell when we were outdoors in the summer because of the blinding glare thrown off our pasty white skin.) I am a jokester (of what caliber - whether "humorous" really is applicable, I cannot unbiasedly judge), and my shape does change, albeit generally between StayPuft, Doughboy and Jabba.

This is what came up for my variables........



Hmmm, definitely some possibilities there. I especially like Pale Girl and Fool Laugh.

I changed up the variables a bit (after deciding I am at least Queen of my own Insanity, if not my kingdom.........):



And came up with these:



Giggle Baroness? Oooh, that's good - royalty *and* it reminds me of The Sound of Music. Hmmm, I'll need to think a bit more on it and get back to you later.......

4. Name your top three crushes - real, fictional, past or present.

Okay, real (as well as past and present!):



(wasn't that obvious?)

Fictional:



and



From the past:







I know, that's more than three. I just couldn't narrow it down any further!

And now, it is time for me, Giggleo (pronounced Giggle-Oh, thankyouverymuch), to get motivated and off to the store. We're on a new mission to eat most of the food in the pantry (which is overflowing) and chest freezer before we move, so theoretically, grocery shopping should be a quick and painless task. Theoretically, anyhow... If anyone else wants to take a stab at this meme, give me a shout and I'll give you some questions!